Saturday, January 2, 2010

The Toast

On New Year's someone told me that the history behind clinking glasses together during a toast is to make sure that the liquids slosh together, cross contaminating just in case one of the glasses had been poisoned. Wikipedia says this is not true. But either way, I was reminded of this famous scene from a childhood holiday movie favorite. Enjoy.

The idea of saying "cheers" and looking someone directly in the eye as you do is relates back to the days of people being suspicous of poisoning.The tradition has carried on in countries like Germany and France, where it's considered quite offensive not to look someone in the eye as you clink glasses. In Ireland we just look at the glass!